Reclaim, Reorganize, Rock with Joe X. Jiang and Sumi Krishnan from The Slants and The Slants Foundation.
What do you do to reclaim a word from hate? Make it the name of a Rock band, of course, and while you do that also start a nonprofit foundation to build a path for your community to follow. That is exactly what Joe X. Jiang and Sumi Krishnan from The Slants and The Slants Foundation have done. We talk music, impact, and what's next on an episode of Boosting Our Voices that's not to be missed.
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Our Host
Ari O’Donovan
Transcript:
Ari O'Donovan: (00:00)
Are y'all comfortable? We hope wherever you're listening to this, you're comfortable. This show is for the Bipo communities in Oregon hosted by a black woman about the amazing work we do every day in this state. So let's build together, connect with our communities, add some laughter and humor even when it's a difficult conversation. Let's boost our voices.
Joe X. Jiang: (00:25)
The fact that there are younger people out there that are trying and they actually care and knowing that, yeah, we are almost taught to think that it's not that big a deal, but those aren't the important elections. Don't even worry about it. But at the end of the day, those are the little things that change the bigger machines. So just get involved and if it doesn't seem like it's working, it's not to withdraw.
Ari O'Donovan: (00:50)
Welcome back y'all to a brand new episode of Boosting Our Voices. As always, I am your host, IRA o' Donovan, and I am also Boost Oregon's Diversity program director. We have two amazing guests on our show today, Sumi Krishnan and Joe Jiang. Do you guys wanna share a little bit about yourselves before we get into some conversation?
Sumi Krishnan: (01:14)
Hi everyone. My name's Sumi. Super excited to be here. Thank you for having us. I have always been super passionate about social justice and really the intersection of like social justice and civic engagement with art and music because my first passion has always been being a songwriter and performer. And you know, just like whenever, since my earliest memory, you know, I've been like singing and dancing in the kitchen and much to my parents' horror who like wanted me to go down a traditional path of being an engineer, a doctor or a lawyer. So anyways, it sort of came full circle when a couple years ago I decided to pursue my passion as a singer-songwriter, but still had the desire to make an impact with that. And you know, just throughout history there's such a, there's such a overlap of social impact and activism with art and music, right? And so it's been really cool to be part of this project with the Lands Foundation, uh, to amplify the impact of our many and much needed social justice causes through
Joe X. Jiang: (02:30)
Music. My two main loves in the creative world, which is basically my two main loves in general are filmmaking and making music. And since I was probably in middle school, I've been just interested in creating stuff and it was never, maybe at one point just to convince my mom that I'm not wasting my life. That I was a career decision. To go into filmmaking or to music was never even an option. I was never good enough to say I was ever gonna become a real musician. So she knew that and I knew that. But making videos, it was like, oh, that could be a job. So since, since middle school I was always talking about I wanted to make things, I wanted to be a director, a filmmaker. And then at some point the love of music, which I had always been in love with music also kind of creeped in.
Joe X. Jiang: (03:25)
So right out of I think high school, I decided for one minute that I was like maybe I could be a musician and started I learning instruments. My mom supported me learning music, but at the beginning was mostly playing piano and you know, the Chinese or Asian traditional instruments. But at some point I picked up a guitar and she actually did buy me my first acoustic. So I'm never gonna say my mom discouraged me from learning music and just parallel, I was making videos, I was making short films in school, in high school into college and I was always making music on the side, neither of which I ever expected to truly make a living from. And I definitely never thought about true impact as far as impacting a bigger audience. I used to make CDs just from my friends, like I will make an entire album worth of music, share it with three people.
Joe X. Jiang: (04:14)
And that was good for me. And if one person liked it, I'm like, I did my job. That was great. It wasn't until years of just doing the starving artist thing and trying to make weirdo movies, I met up with Simon Tam and joined his band, the Slants that I a got to see what being a musician was like in the real world where I get to tour and and see the world and play music for people that actually wanted to hear my music or hear us play music. And then at the same exact time, it was during the, the court case assignment went through with the Supreme Court and I started to see the actual impact of social justice work and how I can combine playing music, talking to an audience and bring in that side of the more important side of the work that we do. And after the band retired, we decided to start the Sams Foundation, which I joined on board as the vice chair. And all these projects that we're, we're promoting now and we're trying to push out into the next six years, they're all part of that idea of moving from an artist to an activist and sometimes doing both at the exact same time and inspiring other people to do the same thing.
Ari O'Donovan: (05:19)
I think it's really amazing that you decided to take the step
Joe X. Jiang: (05:24)
To
Ari O'Donovan: (05:25)
Join a band and to actually go touring and do that kind of thing. 'cause a lot of people have
Joe X. Jiang: (05:31)
The
Ari O'Donovan: (05:32)
Idea or the dream
Joe X. Jiang: (05:33)
That
Ari O'Donovan: (05:34)
They wanna do music, they want to do art, they want to just make comic strips, whatever it is and fear or whatever it is can get in the way of that. So it's good that you actually like took the step to go and do that
Joe X. Jiang: (05:46)
And
Ari O'Donovan: (05:46)
See, you know, even if I just make one person happy, that's a friend of mine, that's good enough for me,
Joe X. Jiang: (05:50)
That was good enough for me. And honestly, that still is good enough for me if I never write another song for bigger audience. And the science never truly had a huge audience. It was always, we're still very independent regardless of how it may seem from the, the news articles that might come out and the stories that have come out. We're a small band, but even if it goes back to just me writing recording songs on like a tape recorder at home and sharing it with a couple of friends, I'm still okay with that. I just started to understand the impact of what that music could be and if you have the opportunity and the platform, what you can use it for. So that's, that's what I've learned from Simon. And honestly getting past that fear of, oh, is this good enough or should I even try to do this Learning from Simon's experiences, no, you're always gonna have to go out and try the best that you can and get it in front of people
Ari O'Donovan: (06:39)
Really. You really do. And I had a great meeting with Simon prior to this podcast recording and he's a really dope person and he gave me so much more information about the slants and the Slants Foundation. And I love the intersectionality between music, art, and activism. I think that's all really important. And there's not a lot of like, I can't name any other bands that are doing that and also have a foundation to back it up. So I really do love that. And I know that you've both come a long way with your careers in fighting to make the world a better place. So can you talk with us about the buildup to the creation of the Slants Foundation and what led you to start that?
Joe X. Jiang: (07:25)
At the end of 2018, and this was after the Supreme Court case that Simon went through, I think as a band, we all just realized a, it was getting to be a slog, especially touring as an independent band. Simon was pretty much floating the band from, from working a bunch of job and doing all the booking and managing as well as playing in the band and working on the music. And after the court case, he was also pretty worn out. So we've always kind of talked about like, what would the next step be for the band at at some point we're 40 year old people touring, we're not the Rolling Stones, we're not gonna be able to do this for another 40 years, or at least not the capacity of just getting in a bus and driving around the country. That's just not, it doesn't work.
Joe X. Jiang: (08:09)
So we talked about, well let's use whatever cachet we have, whatever platform we have to help the next generation of artists. And during even just touring the early years of The Slams, before I even joined the band, so I joined the 2015. Before then Simons had already done these outreach to younger artists and just Asian American youth in general, seeing people on stage that that reflected them more so than the other bands that were out in the world. And he always thought of it as, what can we pass on? And there were masterclasses that we were doing, there were like just general like support of younger artists. So the Science foundation was basically a way for us to say, let's just channel all our energy into saying here's resources, here are some things that we can mentor others in doing, but on top of it we're gonna bring in artists like Sumi and activists like Sumi who can also bring a different perspective because it can't just be the dudes in the band that we're limited by our own experience.
Joe X. Jiang: (09:11)
So we wanted to bring other folks. And then the foundation, I think was already brewing in Simon's head, but once we got that ball rolling in in the 2018, early 2019, it was very, very quick to like, bring in people, let's try to raise some funds, let's pump out a little money into it ourselves and start building projects out. And at the time it was just like, what, what could be projects that worked? Simon has some ideas for scholarships. We all had like different projects and programs that we might wanna try and as a group of volunteers, it was, it hit or miss on what ended up making it to the completed stage of a program. But it was, let's bring a great team of volunteers, people with great experiences together and let's see how much we can help these young artists out there that need our help.
Sumi Krishnan: (09:58)
You know, when I heard about the Slants Foundation, I was living in Nashville at the time and I met Simon because he came to one of my meetup groups that I had hosted called Musicians for Social Justice that I just like threw up on on Meetup. And this was like right before the pandemic hit that then prevented us from meeting further. But you know, it was really interesting to talk to him about what he was doing with the Lance Foundation at the time because I was going through my own internal struggle around really wanting to pursue music as a career, but also feeling like I had a responsibility, um, to my fellow citizens and like to my country, like to kind of do work in like the civic engagement space that would prevent, you know, our country from, from backsliding off a cliff. Just seeing what they were doing with the Slant Foundation was so inspiring to me because it's like I had this thought where I'm like, well Sumi, you can use art, you can use your music and use that as a vehicle for some of these things and issues that you deeply care about.
Sumi Krishnan: (11:15)
Like it, it went from being like an either or in my mind and I was like split and torn to like, well maybe there's an and here and you know, there's a way to combine these two passions and into one path. So that was a, a really cool mindset shift and I just think that so many of the projects that the Slant Foundation is working on are so unique, you know, and you don't really see many other or any other organizations doing the same thing. So I do think that it is kind of leading the way in that sense.
Ari O'Donovan: (11:52)
I think that that combining all those things, activism, social justice, music, sometimes that's really the best way to reach people. Especially when you're talking about younger people that would wanna get involved and are just looking for the right vehicle to be able to do it.
Sumi Krishnan: (12:14)
Exactly, yeah, because music speaks to the heart and you know, changing and impacting, you know, hearts and minds as they say versus just policy is really how you shift culture and move things forward.
Ari O'Donovan: (12:27)
As we've been able to see lately, we can't really just depend on, you know, policymakers, lawmakers, senators and people like this to do that work. It really has to come down to the people themselves, the people who are being impacted. I wanna backtrack just a tiny bit. Do you wanna share anything about Simon Tam's court case or is that something that wouldn't make sense in this podcast?
Joe X. Jiang: (12:58)
I think what's important about the court case is to make sure you take away the idea that it's about the business, which is what the original part of it was. When you, when you create works of art, you wanna own that intellectual property and you wanna own that for business reasons, right? You wanna be able to market that and you wanna make sure other people won't be able to use that same name to market themselves using your hard work. But to take that away, it was business is a business. We, we've seen those with the Washington football team. There are many reasons why a team can change a name and if it's a name that's offending a lot of people, you can change it. It's a business decision. You make that move and you sell merch and you sell new merch. And honestly it's not that big of a deal.
Joe X. Jiang: (13:40)
But we were intertwined with that a little bit where it was the activism, but then there's the business side of things and the, the most important thing for me with Simon in the court case was that it was about doing what was right at the end of the day because we weren't, it wasn't like just because we own the name, we're gonna make all this money, we're getting all this extra things out of it. It was really just to say, look, we should be able to decide on our own name and decide on what is offensive for ourselves. The court case itself was decided on free speech. So that became a much bigger, bigger situation. But at the core of it, it was still let our community speak for ourselves. And so that was the court case, if you wanted a little more overview, was the use of the slants as a band named for an all Asian American band.
Joe X. Jiang: (14:25)
And the idea that the U S P T O, the US Patent and Trademark Office considered that to be racist to Asians because there were Asian members in the band using that name. If it was any other makeup of races in that band, it would've been okay because there was no association of Asians and the word slants, which could be considered derogatory based on some outdated terms. So for Simon specifically, it was a what's right and he fought it for that purpose and he kept fighting it for that purpose. Although at the end of the day there's free speech aspects. Does the government get to decide what people get to say? And the amount of cases that have gone against minorities in this situation, like minorities who wanted to reclaim a term and there are L G B T Q communities that were reclaiming terms that the word itself has been reclaimed and now it's widely adopted, widely used.
Joe X. Jiang: (15:18)
And that's something that most of the time was used against the community. And then in the cases of something like this also used against them to be like, oh, we're protecting you from yourselves. You don't get to use that word. And so that's probably the most important thing to me because that means Simon took this all the way to the Supreme Court one at the Supreme Court unanimously to say that we get to decide our own words, our own language, and for our own communities regardless of the free speech aspect of it. I think that's what the takeaway was and also the persistence to do that. And so I think that applies to the LANs Foundation and what we're trying to do. It's not easy fight. It's not like we're trying to generate a ton of money so we can all support the the nonprofit industrial complex and all take some change out of it and make it a big business.
Joe X. Jiang: (16:07)
We are literally just trying to help the community that we are all part of and it's more than just musicians. We have filmmakers, I'm a filmmaker and I wanna help the next generation of filmmakers too. And so there are projects that are gonna come up that we're gonna try to go in that route too. And music and art and poetry and all that. At the end of the day, it is how can we support our community and the artists that we all relate to to do the next generation of work And when they don't have access to the resources, how can we get them there? And that takes a lot of persistence 'cause I'll tell you right now, it's been hard to raise funds and a lot of times people don't want to give money until there is already money there. And there's a lot of things that are roadblocks that keeps a very volunteer driven organization from getting to the next level. So that persistence, which again, that's how you win a Supreme Court case. You just keep pushing it through. And so that to me is the biggest parallel, is just doing what's right and trying as hard as possible. You may not always succeed, but knowing Simon, seeing how far he is gone with the court case and how far we've gone together as a ragtag nonprofit, it's like, oh yeah, we can do more and we will keep pushing until we get to that next level.
Ari O'Donovan: (17:24)
When Simon developed the name,
Joe X. Jiang: (17:26)
As
Ari O'Donovan: (17:27)
You mentioned, he wanted to let the community speak for itself. If the community is accepting of the name and you all are accepting of the name,
Joe X. Jiang: (17:35)
It
Ari O'Donovan: (17:36)
Should not be a problem for anybody.
Joe X. Jiang: (17:39)
And we're not a monolith. So I also, it's not a necessary, everybody should be okay with everything just because one group of community, part of the community is in agreement of it. But it is still a part of having that discussion and being able to have that conversation within the community to say, Hey, is this okay? And it tends to be that the majority of the community was okay with it. But when the government is the one that's making the decision on what's okay and what's not okay, that's when the voice is being taken away. 'cause they're not actually asking the real part of the community to say that is somebody else taking it away. So yeah, I think it's just important for us to have that dialogue and be willing to talk about it and not just let some, some little group of decision makers up at the top, which were not made up of Asian Americans at all, make that decision. For the people that wrote the, the, I think one of the original things, there was no Asian Americans at all involved the initial decision that said this was racist 'cause they made a decision that it was,
Ari O'Donovan: (18:41)
You know, it's like you said, it's okay for you and it's okay for certain members of the community, but it might not be okay for everybody. In the same way that using the N word in songs and within the black community is okay for a lot of members of the black community and other people don't like it. But for a government entity that doesn't know anything about you, doesn't have any representation of your community anywhere, to be able to say this is not acceptable and we're gonna shut it down now is crazy. That's where the persistence needed to come in so that Simon could take a stand for you for, for himself, for the band and for other members of the community and say that this is a choice we made. So until you're part of the band, until you're like doing some aspect of the band or you're part of the community, your opinion shouldn't matter.
Joe X. Jiang: (19:39)
And the way the court case unfolded because being that it's a free speech issue and now it's not just one community, there were wins for folks from the community, the the L G B T Q community, uh, feminist communities and there were bands that were feminist bands that were reclaiming terms that were used by porn companies, right? Porn companies were using terms that they were okay using. But there were bands that were trying to reclaim it in a punk sense of the word and they were told they weren't able to trademark that those words either register those words. So it's for a lot of communities, there's always gonna be every now and then a case where maybe somebody's gonna take advantage of the situation. But again, the community's big. If there's enough people that are in support of a movement, chances are we will get there first. And it's, in fact a lot of communities have been reclaiming terms and and approaching this from a place of empowerment. So we'll get there before the bad people.
Ari O'Donovan: (20:35)
Right? And I've seen that over the years with a variety of terms that really had a very strong negative connotation. And it depends on who's using the term to whether or not it's gonna have have a negative connotation. But if you take the term and you use it within the community that it was associated with, you can turn it on its ear and make it mean something else. And then it takes the original negative connotation, negative power away from it little by little
Joe X. Jiang: (21:06)
Absolutely. Language, it's, it's fluid, it changes and that's what progression is. It evolves and as people with general sense of understanding of context and nuance, we can grow if we allow it to grow.
Ari O'Donovan: (21:21)
Absolutely. Sumi, did you wanna say anything about that? 'cause I got a bunch more stuff to talk about, but I wanna make sure I ask you first.
Sumi Krishnan: (21:29)
No, that sounds great.
Ari O'Donovan: (21:32)
So y'all have been pushing the bar for a really long time. Um, with everything you do, like the slants, the band itself, the foundation, can you tell us what are some of the impactful moments from the Ants Foundation that give you hope for moving forward?
Sumi Krishnan: (21:50)
One of the recent projects that the Lance Foundation executed was called Asian Pacific's Radio. And I thought that, you know, helping to connect Asian-American artists with causes that they were passionate about that had, you know, some social justice or policy level impact, help them think about how to use their art as a means to further the impact of that cause. So whether it's, you know, to help get the message out or to, you know, go beyond just playing a show as a fundraiser, right? Which is kind of like the standard way that music is used to further the impact of various social causes, but in what other creative ways can art be used and music be used to actually make an impact. And I think just helping facilitate some of those relationships and conversations and music, you get a sense for how most people care a lot.
Sumi Krishnan: (23:08)
You know, 'cause sometimes when you watch the news and pay attention to what's going on, it's really easy to become deflated and become really kind of like just wanting to check out. Like just feel like, oh my God, everything's going to. Like I wanna move to Costa Rica, right? Like you, you hear this all the time, like I was in a cab an Uber yesterday and you know, this guy's like, oh I just, I'm gonna get outta here. So everyone's too, you know, extreme on both sides and you know, it's like okay, common trope, like people who, it's easy to get disillusioned and I think, you know, being part of these projects really reminds you that actually like so many people care a lot and the impact of policies and the impact of things that we are aren't doing, whether it co you know, whether it's about gun violence or climate change, it's like these are really real near term term issues that need to be addressed.
Sumi Krishnan: (24:02)
And if we all just check out and move to Costa Rica so to speak, like that's not the solution, you know? But being part of this project and being, seeing how so many people care and are willing to go spend their free time to try to make whatever small difference we as one person, you know, can make it's really awe inspiring to you get to see like we're all human. Like this is the core of humanity, like is caring and is caring about other people's. When you break it down to that level and like it really reminds you like we're all, most of us are good people and a lot of the harm that's being caused right now, I don't wanna go off on my soapbox too much about this, but you know, like are really caused by the smallest minority of people and or corporations who are making major messes of what we have. And so banning together and fighting back together has always been the path for social change and still it is. And so I think it's just, it's a powerful reminder when you're plugged into the people who are doing the work that, and we can have hope.
Ari O'Donovan: (25:12)
Absolutely. I always wanna make sure that people know. A friend of mine had told me recently, never underestimate the power of a small group. There's so much that can be done with just a handful of people, even just one or two people. And it's like you said, the media and news and all that, it's designed to incite fear. It's designed to make people think the world is way worse than it is. There's nothing that you can do, don't try, you'll be wasting your time. Just listen to the news all the time on nonstop so you can stay updated with what's happening. But don't try to change anything. It's impossible.
Sumi Krishnan: (25:51)
Right? And then, you know, not surprisingly get further and further disillusioned and depressed if you just listen to it 24 7 and then to the point where you have no energy to actually do anything.
Ari O'Donovan: (26:01)
It really is a whole vicious cycle. I don't even watch it very much anymore because of that.
Joe X. Jiang: (26:09)
I've missed my share of midterms and I do feel bad about it and that I feel bad. And so it's more encouraging. During one of our sessions that we did for the Pacific's radios, an artist half my age was able to talk about the midterms with so much passion, so much interest. And that to me is a very inspiring, it made me inspired and be, it's also a good reminder to be like, hey, get on it. I know it's not the most interesting thing sometimes to read about the midterms and so confusing to try to read the ballots for some of the midterm stuff. I never understand most of them. But the fact that there are younger people out there that are trying and they actually care and knowing that, yeah, we are almost taught to think that it's not that big a deal that those aren't the important elections, don't even worry about it.
Joe X. Jiang: (27:05)
But at the end of the day, those are the little things that change the bigger machines. So just get involved and if it doesn't seem like it's working, it's not to withdraw or move to Costa Rica, but it, it is to then start a smaller group that can make a difference and join up with the groups that are making the difference and trying to support them in some ways. And just seeing, again, seeing we're trying to inspire the younger artists to do that, but to see some of them already there and going further along than I have. Okay, so it's the inspiration's coming back this way and now I have to do more. I have to step up.
Ari O'Donovan: (27:40)
It would be so easy for everybody to just move to Costa Rica if you have the money. This is terrible here. So let's go somewhere where they have everything together. , we can't, we can't really think of it like that. And I like that Asian Pacific's radio was inspiring people to think about how can we make where we are better? How can we make the community that we are part of and the greater surrounding place that we live better? It's like you said, Sumi, most people are good. So if people just remember that a lot can be accomplished and you have to believe in yourself. And I've seen some young people just like you were saying, Joe, really, really step up and and remind me of that daily
Joe X. Jiang: (28:32)
Activist burnout happens too. So sometimes when you've been in the the world for a little bit, you burn out. But that's why you need the younger, younger generation to kind of fill in that blank for a while and then take over. But then, you know, once that burnout goes away a little bit, you come back and you, you try again. Yeah. You need that cycle. I
Ari O'Donovan: (28:51)
Even get inspiration. I could you not from small children , I have a niece and I was telling her, you know, this is, you know, a big problem. I was telling her about some problem in the world and she's like, well you know, I think everything's gonna be all right as long as we try. And I'm like, wow, there are adult grown people that feel like that's impossible. And I'm hearing this from a five year old. Let's, let's take her advice. Yeah, let's really try to do that. Can you talk to us about some of your most impactful memories of creating or supporting art that carried the message the world needed to hear as we've been talking about messaging and what people need to know in order to get moving themselves and get involved themselves.
Sumi Krishnan: (29:53)
You know, one of the stories from somebody that was involved with the Asian Pacific's radio program and the organization that he connected his music with was called Change the Referee, or I believe it was called Change the Ref. Yeah. And it was led by a father of somebody who was killed in the Parkland High School or the, the high school shooting in, in Parkland, Florida. And getting to see that, first of all Manuel Oliver was the name of the father and he came on and he came on and you know, told us about the story of his son and the story of creating the group changed the ref because kind of a dual meaning change the ref as in like, let's change who is in in power, who can actually, you know, fight to protect our kids and pass common sense gun policy. But also because it was, you know, saying that his son, I guess was used in sports and whatever, like, you know, it had this double meaning for him and the, you know, just the, the fact that the fact that, you know, there's so many of these really emotional and powerful and important fights that are going on.
Sumi Krishnan: (31:17)
And of course like our role is like, okay well and then the song that was written to support this organization and the message and the music, like it literally like, it just brought us all to tears while, you know, while we're trying to talk about how we change the ref and how we make progress. And at the same time you're talking about kids being shot to death and it's like, it's just, it's heart wrenching, right? And like, so I don't know, just the, that was to me an example of, you know, where music allows us to process emotions and when something so unbelievable has happened, like it's one of the only outlets I think that we have art is to actually allow us to carry on, you know, and not let grief swallow us whole. And I think that, you know, Mr. Oliver used art and was constantly, you know, he's an artist himself and constantly using art and music to get the community together and to make his point and to spread the message and you know, it's really like an example of how without art these messages and this work would be too painful I think to carry by itself.
Sumi Krishnan: (32:29)
That's an example that comes to mind.
Ari O'Donovan: (32:32)
Yeah, that's a really strong example and every time I hear about a school shooting they're so numerous lately, it, it really, it really gets to me and if you're a parent out there, it's really gotta get to you because you think you're sending your own kid to school. You know, what if this was my child, what if it was their school? And I can tell you that music throughout my life has gotten me through some of the hardest and darkest times I've ever been in. And I don't know that maybe I would've been able to overcome those things, but it would've been a rougher road and I wouldn't be the same positively changed person. So that's the kind of thing that music does for people. And when you combine it with trying to make a difference with something that's, so it seems like it's just getting worse, like school shooting's just more numerous. I mean that that really is the best way to be able to do it.
Sumi Krishnan: (33:40)
Oh yeah. Or at least a way and a, a tool and a a mechanism
Joe X. Jiang: (33:44)
That was probably the most powerful interview. And it was one of those things where again, it was hard to schedule, it was hard to get everybody, we weren't sure if the father was gonna be able to make that interview. So we were doing the conversation with Dean to start with, but it's one of those moments where a small group of people came together was able to put together this really powerful moment. And I know that the father has been doing the work for a while and the, their foundation has been doing major benefit concerts and outreach and all that, but for us it was just do be able to connect with him that one time and have that be so powerful for us and hopefully our audience, the audience that may have not heard about that particular organization. And so I, yeah, I was very, very impressed, amazed by that coming together. And so that's kind of a standard for us. We we're talking about our future iteration of this project and how we're going to hopefully make it better and make it more produced. And I think the emotional part is the most important part. And if we're able to capture that regardless of if it's just a zoom call, if it's just a co podcast or you know, whatever it is, it's, that's, that's still capturing power, that's still capturing very important moments. And so I'm using that as measuring stick for the future.
Ari O'Donovan: (35:10)
Definitely. I think it's important to stay close to the emotion surrounding how you feel and why you feel and what you're feeling about. Because without that it's you know, what is your why? Like you really gotta find what the why is for you and then you can connect with others and if they have a same or a similar why,
Joe X. Jiang: (35:37)
Then
Ari O'Donovan: (35:37)
You can make a difference doing something. And
Joe X. Jiang: (35:40)
Just
Ari O'Donovan: (35:40)
Like with that data, it just takes one person, sometimes
Joe X. Jiang: (35:43)
Just
Ari O'Donovan: (35:44)
One person, a small group. It doesn't have to be a whole lot of people.
Joe X. Jiang: (35:48)
Going
Ari O'Donovan: (35:49)
Back to some of your own musical origins,
Joe X. Jiang: (35:53)
I'm
Ari O'Donovan: (35:53)
Always interested in, in knowing what inspired people
Joe X. Jiang: (35:56)
To
Ari O'Donovan: (35:57)
Become who they are and to create the way they do. What were the songs or who were the artists that inspired you to create?
Joe X. Jiang: (36:05)
I have pretty simple list. Oh actually you know what, I'm gonna just throw this out because I'm a huge fan of theirs and we were talking about bands that also have foundations that do great work. Tegan and Sarah, they actually have a foundation, Tegan and Sarah Foundation that does outreach for L G T Q youths. They're probably doing way more because they're able to fund it a lot better and they have much bigger names involved and nonprofits, foundations. But I'm just thinking of like a band that's relatively, even though they're much bigger, they're relatively in indie bystanders and they were a huge influence for me as far as just stage shows and how, how communicating with the audience because that's what they were really known for and they were a huge part of it. Otherwise, I wouldn't wanna say Radiohead 'cause my favorite man of all the time.
Joe X. Jiang: (36:51)
And um, they're, I would say also kind of outspoken and in their sort of more political statements and just being a little more aware of what's going on in the world. But those are my two, two biggest musical saves. And yeah, I just, I like being able to listen to music as music and sometimes the lyrics don't have to talk about the biggest troubles in the world, but knowing that the artist is aware of it. And there are times where a lyric might be there that is talking about something, but you don't have to think about it. The idea of like you, you can, you can have it be a processing of an emotion but you can also walk away and come back and just listen to it as something else that you can interpret a little bit differently. But then have it remind you later on, well no this was written during this time and it's about this thing and you just have that nice, that's the beauty of music. You can interpret it differently each time. And based on the memory and how you've curse heard their songs. So say those two,
Sumi Krishnan: (37:51)
I dunno, the bands that were going through my head, I mean Pearl Jam was such a huge part of my like childhood, I think it's 'cause I had older sisters and they would like come home from their like sports practice and make me like give my one sister in particular. I remember like she would make me give her a back massage like every night. And as like the younger like sister who wanted to be in her good graces, I would I would give her a back massage and she'd be playing Pearl Jam and telling me all of like the gossip and the drama from her
Joe X. Jiang: (38:21)
Heights,
Sumi Krishnan: (38:22)
You know, from practice that day or whatever. And I thought it was so cool to be in, in on that. So Pearl Jam is like a core memory for my childhood. But you know, it's interesting too 'cause then I think about it from the aspect like performers and
Sumi Krishnan: (38:36)
Pink is really impressing me in so many ways. Like one, she really transformed her voice. She used to just have like, okay, like normal, like pink voice. Like back in the day 15 years ago it was nothing really, you know, it wasn't a spectacle. And now her voice, she has put so much work into it, it's so clear and it's this amazing powerhouse. And not only that but her acrobatics and her like gymnastics as she's like, you know, I don't know if you've seen her recent shows or the documentary that she, that was made of her tour a few years ago, but like she's out there, you know, like doing flying across the room in cloth and spinning and doing tumbles and turns and like, it's crazy. And I'm over here like taking my like gymnastics class trying to make one day be able to do something like that.
Sumi Krishnan: (39:30)
So I think so many, I think artists inspire us in so many different ways. Whether it's like, you know, memories associated with personal experience or you know, so something that we'd love to be able to do one day or the way they perform or like some, you know, I feel like I'm, I'm inspired by, it's interesting 'cause I definitely don't get only having like one musical style that you listen to. 'cause I think, and I think genres now are like all coming together because everybody's realizing, oh wait, I like, I like more than just this one, you know, than just top 40 on the radio or like just jazz from the 16. You know like, and I think people are realizing that there is something to be gained from like all genres for fit different moods and stuff. And that's clearly like coming up in the new music and the Gen Z I don't even think would like, would relate to like only preferring certain types of music. when, you know what I mean, Joe, like, it seems like everyone just like everything these days I
Joe X. Jiang: (40:26)
Like the the weird cycles of like memes becoming popular again. So there's songs that like, like Rick Astley's Never Gonna, it's like that is now the younger gener like this is the greatest song ever. It's not even a joke anymore. And it's like, no it was never a joke. He's an incredible musician, incredible singer. But it's just like that, it's permeating too because you'll have like TikTok loops where it's just a song in the background. It's like five seconds that five seconds stay with your head. And sometimes old songs, sometimes it's a new song, sometimes a new song. The sample's an old song. It's just all bubbling,
Ari O'Donovan: (40:59)
All kinds of songs. I got a song by Tony Braxton, that Burner Boy sample. Then I'm like wow, I love the original and I love this new one. It's probably will be another five years post. Somebody else do it. So , I love that. I, I love to hear the music that has impacted both of you. And I have seen Pink not live, but I have seen her in videos and stuff and she really, she, she does a lot on stage. She's really talented. Really talented. I grew up with her old stuff but I love her new songs as well. She's just, I wouldn't mind to see her in concert. I think it would be an amazing show. I'd say for me it would have to be Beyonce song, black Parade and India Ari's video. Those are the definitely the two songs that if I'm ever having any kind of a problem, whatever it is, I, one of those is gonna help me feel better. I wanna say. Yeah. Yeah, she's got new songs and older songs are always gonna have a plus a special place in my heart. But
Joe X. Jiang: (42:07)
That was like a specifically that era, the late nineties, early two thousands, I think that hurt, at least when I came across her I was like, oh yeah, that's the sound knowing that like TikTok is bringing songs out, movies bring things out. I just watched a, they clone Tyrone on Netflix and at the end of the movie they had Erica bads the the Tyrone song and they re she rerecorded it for the movies. So instead of You Better Call Tyrone's, they clone Tyrone and it's just, it was so I was watching the actual video again and just laughing my off. And I also love that being from the film world too and just being like, music means something more than what the song itself was. 'cause you can take that, you can extrapolate, interplay however you want to take the lyrics and replace it into the world and all of a sudden it gets a new life and then has a completely new audience.
Joe X. Jiang: (43:02)
Strangers things did that too with um, Kate Bush. And it's just, it's now running a new life. It's bringing artists that people may not be really talking about, at least current generation may not be talking about, but you're bringing them back and as soon as they become back they're in prominence again. Then all the things that are associated with them and what the walls and barriers that're breaking down that will come back. I do really love that, that if we are helping artists create music today, hopefully in 50 years when the earth is still around, hopefully these songs can come back and have meaning down the road. And that's just this, the beauty of creating.
Ari O'Donovan: (43:41)
Yeah, I agree. And and it really can't happen 'cause that song , that song was like completely obscure and then you just heard it on the radio and wherever else you were listening to music. I guess I'm a little older now 'cause I'm talking about the radio. So what would you guys say your advice is for the next generation of artists out there who are just getting started, they're looking to make an impact with their art and their early works. Looking at their early works, wondering if it'll have an impact that they're hoping for.
Sumi Krishnan: (44:16)
Joe alluded to it in the beginning around, you know, just not worrying, not doing so much. Like questioning of am I good enough? Is my stuff good enough? Is my creativity strong enough? Like I think it's so important just to trust yourself, to make art, to put stuff out there and to keep, you know, getting better and learning like as you go. And one of my biggest lessons learned is that you can't learn and you can't get better and you can't make an impact if you're trying to do it all in your head or like by yourself. You have to be brave enough. You have to be courageous enough to let your art meet the world and then get that feedback and iterate from there. And which means you're not gonna be great when you start. And like that's okay, you know, nobody is judging you. Like, I think it's to be celebrated that we make art and that we put it out there and that we are committed to a path of growth and learning. And like that's what's going to help develop all of us into our highest potential. And that's what's gonna help develop all of us who have our greatest impact. Um, but we can't do it by ourselves. We can't do it hiding. We can't do it in the dark. We have to be brave enough to
Joe X. Jiang: (45:25)
Let it
Sumi Krishnan: (45:25)
Meet the world and iterate out loud in public.
Joe X. Jiang: (45:29)
It took me 35 years, or 35 years of my life for me to actually go on the road and tour outside of Oregon. And I will say that right now, that fear was one of the reasons why I kept me sort of stuck in, in the place where I was. And again, like I justified that even if one person heard and it was just my friend, I'm fine with that being the case. So getting past that fear is hard. And it's also okay to have that be what confines you, if that's the way it is. 'cause there are artists out there that may never step foot outside of their city, their town, their state. That's okay if you refuse to do it and the fear is just, just holding you down the whole time, then, then reconsider that. Because like you're saying, like we have to be able to get past that.
Joe X. Jiang: (46:20)
'cause at some point you're gonna, you're gonna want to grow. But to me the most important aspect of it and sort of my own experiences that entire, I didn't play music since I was born, so whatever since I was in middle school. So for whatever 20 years, I love playing music. I did it because I loved it regardless of whether I believed that anybody else would like the music or that if I ever had a chance of being out in the public world with that music, I did it because I love the same thing with filmmaking. I, I just did it because I enjoyed it. So I think for all these younger artists that are maybe questioning themselves, maybe saying, well, should I keep doing this or should I just go get a day job and drop this, get the day job. I mean this is the, the mom side of people talking.
Joe X. Jiang: (47:04)
It's like you can get the job, you find success and I know sue me. I think I've, you have a real real job. I don't, I am actually a professional slacker and music video creator person, so I don't have a real job. So I do this mostly full-time. But you can absolutely go out into the world, find success, but still maintain some of that love for that creative interest, the passion and just keep doing it because you love it. Don't do it because you think you can make money. Don't do it because you think you're supposed to be a big performer or whatever else. And that's the only thing that matters to me as long as they keep doing it. You could be 35, you could be 45, you could be 60 when you do your first tour or do your first release into the world and that's totally fine. That one song made mean more when you release it at 60 than you know, stuff you released all, all throughout your childhood. Because those things may not mean anything to you. I just think as long as they keep doing it because they love it, regardless what the outcome is, just keep doing it.
Sumi Krishnan: (48:06)
What makes me sad is to see so many artists with music that they're too scared to let the public hear. You know? And they've maybe got some great songs, some like gems that would actually like impact so many people and that people actually like would love to be able to hear. Uh, but because of our like very human fear of showing ourselves and like showing our creativity and you know, so many of us, I I too relate. Like I, it took me so long to be able to put music out there, which I only started doing recently. And I think my thought is coming from this place of like, I do wish I had done it earlier because I think that now that I'm putting music out there into the world is when I'm getting better and when I try to do it in my head and like self-critique my own work before releasing anything, I didn't really, I stayed the same for years doing that and no one got to hear that music at the same time. So that's where my perspective had come from.
Joe X. Jiang: (49:14)
Can we promote SUNY's, like pop star of music coming out like say that Summy x's pop project. It's amazing sound and it sounds so like exactly what you would expect to hear on like a pop stage.
Sumi Krishnan: (49:30)
Thanks man. I appreciate that.
Ari O'Donovan: (49:34)
I love it. You promote it. Tell listeners about it. That's what the show is for. Zoom
Sumi Krishnan: (49:38)
Me X on Spotify and all platforms and X xo, Sumi X on Instagram and TikTok.
Joe X. Jiang: (49:44)
That's your first major release.
Sumi Krishnan: (49:46)
Yeah, .
Ari O'Donovan: (49:47)
Wow. I mean it
Joe X. Jiang: (49:48)
Sounds amazing. I just, anybody who who will go to listen to, I'll tell you right now, it sounds amazing. And again, for a first release of someone who's been in the world for a little bit and, and probably all the fear that we're talking about all the things that probably kept us from doing this release, it's like, no, you can, you can put it out anytime and it's gonna be worth it.
Ari O'Donovan: (50:07)
Absolutely. And congratulations Sumi for putting that out there and, and letting people hear it. Mm-hmm. , thank you. That's dope. Yeah.
Sumi Krishnan: (50:16)
Took me long enough.
Ari O'Donovan: (50:17)
I love that there's no age limit, there's no time limit when you are ready, you know, don't let people make you feel like you can't be ready. I love the advice that both of you have given. Let the love for what you do and what you make and the pride that you feel for actually being brave enough to show it to someone else outweigh the fear. Mm-hmm.
Joe X. Jiang: (50:41)
,
Ari O'Donovan: (50:43)
I think that's really important for people to keep in mind, which is in a nutshell exactly what both of you said. Mm-hmm. , so I love that. What do you think Portland needs to hear? It could be anything or just Oregon in general. Portland, all of Oregon,
Joe X. Jiang: (51:06)
Eugene, Portland. I, I would say this right now, I've definitely been in my mom and my stepdad. You know, there's a very liberal background to our lives and as immigrants, as people who travel the world and seeing, seeing things, it's like, yeah, we, we definitely have more of a liberal leaning in the most part. The one thing that when I started traveling the country and touring and talking to people and through the lands, there was definitely interesting channels of people that were coming up to us because free speech advocates are not necessarily the, the most, you know, liberal of the bunch. And there are also environments where we're talking to people from all over, all, all walks of life. We have to get outside of the bubble a little bit. And I think what we appreciate in the arts and everything else is we can't live in that bubble because at some point it becomes obsolete.
Joe X. Jiang: (51:57)
It becomes outdated. And that's one of the things where I know there's a lot of talks about Portland right now, and I think of a lot of it as there's pandemic reasons. There's a lot of other things where Portland's having issues and we're trying to deal with it very compassionately. That's what we're trying to do. And that's a lot of times what the people are trying to like mock Portland for, but we're trying to do things with compassion. But at the end of the day, you also have to realize not everything is as simple as, well we live in our nice little liberal bubble that that's how the rest of the world works and that's how everything can get fixed. So I just, I just want us to have some context nuance in, in dealing with a lot of things in the world and also realizing that not everybody is how we project them to see just like people shouldn't be projecting on what Portland's like.
Joe X. Jiang: (52:45)
So I think what Portland really just needs to hear is that sense of like, there is bigger worldviews. We need to be a little more as open-minded as Portland seems. I mean Portland, Simon and I have a song that we do for this musical project. We are America's whitest major city. I don't know if it's still technically true where we still are. And I think that in incentive is like we can pat ourselves in the back on how like open-minded we are, but we're actually not that open-minded. We have some major issues and part of what the pandemic and all the protests was like, seeing that it's like, oh yeah, we're not this perfect little city, perfect little world that we have major things that we still need to deal with. And so I think Portland just need to be aware of that and we, we are trying, but we need to try harder and there just needs to be a lot more work done for ourselves and for the relationship with the rest of the country. Honestly, I love the city and I, I I will support the city as long as, you know, I can. So I, I think it's just, it's all about trying to do the right thing, trying to do compassionate things, but also just being aware that it's not always as simple as that.
Ari O'Donovan: (53:53)
Just gotta be willing to try. Yeah. That's all it takes. So lastly, where can people find y'all online? If you have an event coming up or you wanna promote something or you just wanna tell us where we can find you online, tell us everything right now.
Sumi Krishnan: (54:12)
Well, I already said mine, but yeah. Follow my music journey at exo sumia X on Instagram. That'd be the best place. I'm
Joe X. Jiang: (54:23)
Terrible with social media, so please follow the slants and the slants.org for the Slants Foundation. Actually, just go there, just go to the slants.org. Don't even need to go look through the slants because, uh, we're, we're, we're still trying our best to, to get more positive work out into the world.
Ari O'Donovan: (54:43)
Thanks for listening to this episode. Can bring the community info without the community. Appreciate you showing up. If you wanna reach out, hit us up on ig at boosting our voices or at our website, boost oregon.org. Keep doing great things, keep uplifting one another and we'll do the same. See you next time.